Software: GIMP 2.6-2.8
Proficiency level: Intermediate to Advanced
Estimated time: 30-40 minutes
Plugins required: MathMap, Interleave Layers, Mirror Layers


I'll be referring to my previous Still Photo 3D effect animationTutorial on several occasions (further, Tutorial 1).
The basics of working with layers, select tools, maps, paths and transparency WILL NOT be covered here.

In this image there are two objects and water surface we are going to animate. If you've chosen your own image with different object(s) and surface, there could be some things you'll have to figure out on your own.


Unlike Tutorial 1 animation, this time we're going to leave background absolutely motionless.

Stage 1. Selecting objects and making Displacement Maps
1.Open image, change layer name to Original
2.Add alpha channel
3.Duplicate Original layer, name it Map Boat 1
4.Select the boat in front using free select, scissors select of foreground selection tool (accuracy matters here)
5.Go to Menu>Select>to Path, name this path Boat 1
6.Deselect all (Shift-Ctrl-A)
7.Duplicate Map Boat 1 layer, rename it Map Boat 2
8.Repeat steps 4-6 for the small boat, name new path Boat 2
9.Go to Map Boat 1 layer
10. Choose Boat 1 path, right-click, Path to Selection
11. Grow the selection by 1 pixels
12. Paint your map as shown in Tutorial 1 (only this time you have to be more precise and paint the boat as close as possible to the one shown below).
13. Ctrl-I to invert the selection, Delete key to delete everything around the Boat.
14. Shift-Ctrl-A to deselect all.
15. Go to Map Boat 2 layer and repeat steps 10-13 using Boat 2 path this time.
16. Deselect all.
Now you have 2 displacement maps and 2 paths ready. And total of 3 layers (See picture below)


Stage 2. Displacing Layers and making frames
Steps are pretty much the same as in Tutorial 1. (Important note: unlike in Tutorial 1 animation, your're going to displace Original image in Y-coordinates to move the objects up and down rather than side to side).

1. Drag Original layer over the Toolbox area or Edit>Copy, Edit>Paste as New Image
2. Add Map Boat 1 layer to the new image ( Edit>Copy, Edit>Paste as New Layer).
3. Copy Boat 1 path and paste it in New image.
(Important note: Blurring Map layer is optional in this case. If you feel that the precision level of your map is high, don't blur it, otherwise, apply Gaussian Blur with value 3 to 5)
4. Duplicate Original and go to Filters>Map>Displace
5. Uncheck X-displace and set Y-displace to 1.00
6. Create 6 displaced layers as shown in Tutorial 1.
7.Duplicate Original again and create 5 displaced layers with Y -1 (negative 1) value in Map>Displace.


8. Delete map layer.
You must have 12 layers now. Run Playback in Filters>Animation. If you're not satisfied with the results, make selection from path and adjust you map – re-paint over regions where the boat edges came out too blurry.
9. Run Mirror Layers Script.
Total layers count is now 22.


10.Now go to you first image again, drag and drop Original layer over Toolbox area to create 3rd image.
11.Copy and paste here Map 2 and Boat 2 path like you did for your second image
12. Select Original , right-click on path, path to Selection.
13. Ctrl-I to invert selection and press Delete key to delete everything around boat 2.
14. Duplicate Original, name it +0.5
15. Map>Displace Y at +0.5.
16. Duplicate displaced layer, Ctrl-F and name it +1.0
17. Go to Original and displace it at -0.5. Name it -0.5
18. Duplicate -0.5 layer and Ctrl-F, name it -1.0.


19. Delete Map layer
Now you have 4 layers.
20. Make 2 more copies of each layer to a total of 12. (See picture below)


22.Run Mirror Layers script
Now you have 22 layers.


As you will see later all the troubles of making each boat displacement layers separately are going to pay off.
Each boat will rock in its own pace!!!

Stage 3 Waves animation

1.Drag and drop Orig from the first image over Toolbox area to create fourth image
2. Copy Boat 1 path and paste it here
3. Path to Selection
4. Grow the selection by 3 pixels and press Delete key
5. Deselect all
6. With Free Select tool draw a line just below the bottom of the small boat and select everything above that line and press Delete key

7. Duplicate layer, now name layers Waves 1 and Waves 2
8. In Waves 1 select lower part of the waves with free select tool
9. Invert selection (Ctrl-I)and delete again

10. Click on Wave 2 layer, Invert selection
11. Press Delete key
12. Drag and drop Waves 2 to create a new image
13. Delete Waves 2
Now you have two images Waves 1 and Waves 2 with 1 layer each.
14. In Waves 1 go to Filters>Generic>MathMap>Distorts>Sea, check animation option and set number of frames to 22. Run plugin with default User Values
15. Go two Waves 2 image and run Mathmap again, only this time set User Values to approximately half of its values
16. Delete bottom layers in both Waves images to keep the overall number of layers exactly 22.

Now Playback all your animations and make adjustments if necessary before you get to the next stage.

Stage 4 Combining animations
This is a very quick stage if you use Interleave Layers scripts and keep the right order of combining images. (Important note: the script will not run if the number of layers in two stacks do not match. Also, it won't run if some of the layers have visability tured off)
1. Choose your Wave 1 image and go to Image>Interleave Layers>Interleave Stacks of Layers. Make sure Waves 2 is your source layer and run the script. Yes to Merge. New Image is created – combined waves. Run Playback to see if there no gaps between the lower and upper parts of the waves.


2. Save and close Waves 1 and 2 images

3. Go to your second image – Boat 1 with displaced layers and run Interleave Layers choosing Boat 2 as source layers. Yes to merge and run it. New image is created – two animated boats with static waves
4. Save and close Boat 1 and 2 images
5. Now you have two images left. Choose combined boats image and run Interleave Layers again. Combined waves should be your source layers.
Your animation is ready!!!


Stage 5 Saving your animation
At the end of Tutorial 1 I've already covered animation options. If you decided to make GIF animation I would recommend to convert your image to Indexed in Image>Mode. Use Optimum palette and Floyd-Steinberg (normal) color dithering method. Now Optimize (Difference) and export as GIF. Check Loop Forever box and set frame delays to 150 ms. You're done. Congratulations!

Thanks for reading!


P.S. This Tutorial can be used as the basis for making animation within animation. On that I am going to make another (much shorter) tutorial

Wow! Somebody said my tutorials were hard. This looks REALLY complex to me. Great Result!

Before got started with this tut, I was tempted to write down just the general ideas on how to make such animations. Then figured, it might not be enough for someone who'd never done Tutorial 1 kind of thing. Later on came realization that rare person would even get half way through that wall of text.
Posted it anyway. Took me nearly 5 hours to write it (no wonder, I couldn't find a similar tut on the net) For this reason alone, not sure this is not my last tut here

Nice job on the tut, I shall have to attempt it at some point.

Don't quit on us now Kite. I love your stuff. You are obviously very accomplished wtih Gimp and can give anyone here at GC a run for their money. It may be complex but it's priceless!

Like you said, not much on the net regarding how to do this. I think there is definitely a niche for Advanced Gimp Tutorials. Hmmmmm...AGT, I like that, kinda has a nice ring to it don't you think? Somebody needs to build a new website just for that or at least include a separate "Advanced" section for folks that are not faint of heart.

Thank you, D! Thank you, he4rty!

Thanks for encouraging me. I really need that. Besides, laziness is my alter ego

AGT! First thought - America's Got Talent TV show

Don't start with me, I hate all those stupid so called talent shows with all the no-talent idiots and psychotics they always start with. What's up with that anyway? I will, however occasionally watch it when it gets down to the final four or five but I refuse to watch Dancing With the Stars. I prefer much more intelligent and intellectually challenging shows that have lots of stuff blowing up!

WOW! Shockingly incredible K1TesseraEna! Too advanced for me I won't even try it. But I am in awe.
I have not seen anything like it anywhere else... the whole boat rocking thing is amazing.

Thank you, Barbie, for your kind words!
It's not that complicated as it might seem. Well, it has two extra steps to my Tut 1, which is REALLY easy to follow (those who tried it will tell you the same)




I'm glad you like it Angelabrad8! Thank you!

Totally awesome, K1te! Wow. Takes my breath away.

Thank you, O! Your opinion is paramount!

Very cool K1te; way too much work for a lazy filter guy like me though. lol

Thank you, Lyle! I know exactly what you mean, lol.
No more animations and tuts from my part in the near future - getting tired of it, running out of ideas and inspiration.
Besides, Blender is eating up almost all of my free time. It's just today I'm taking timeout, got fed up with Blender too this week

Barbie - I tried the tut and its fairly easy to follow and pushing yourself to try these tuts even if you fail will always help with a better understanding of gimp, you never know you might actually surprise yourself.

Hi all.

I've been messing around with this tutorial and although I didn't get any further than making the boat move up and down I would like to finish it. The problem I've got is that the boat's movement is rather uneven. For a couple of the frames it appears as if they have dropped down too far making the transparent layer underneath visible - this can be seen at the top of the image.
Also it looks as if the puddle of water on the dock, next to the boat's right hand side, is lifting off the ground.

Any pointers or tips as to what might be wrong appreciated. Cheers.

@ caz Without seeing XCF file I can't really say what exactly went wrong but it seems that the Map layer where you paint a boat did not have an alpha channel. After cutting out the background around the boat it (background) remained white instead of transparent (Step 13, Stage 1)
In Tutorial 1 we paint the background with black, but in this tutorial you have to leave it transparent to make BG absolutely motionless at this point.
Jumping boat seems to be a result of putting displaced layers in the wrong order. Please, name your layers as in Tutorial 1 to avoid confusion.

Thanks for trying this tutorial out. It is a tough one to follow, miss one step or do it the wrong way and the entire outcome will be a mess.
I would recommend to master Tutorial One before you advance to this Tutorial.
P.S. I had to edit this tutorial 8 times due to the screenshots disappearing one by one by some reason (it would not display the picture, only missing image icons) . After reloading pictures I was afraid I'd made a mess and had to check and double check to make sure pictures correlate to the right steps. Checked one more time and everything seems to be in the right place.

Thanks for the quick response on this. I can't remember if I added an alpha channel before deleting, I think I did but it was a few days ago and what with Christmas and beer the old memory seems a bit foggy at the moment.
Part of the background around the boat was left in place - some of the grey sky between the ship's rigging - as I thought this wouldn't notice in the final animation. Maybe that could be causing part of the problem?
I'll have a run through on the whole process again and see if I can come up with a smoother version.
I can post the xcf, if it's allowed, of this and any future versions if anyone wants to have a look at them.

It's real good of you to have done this tutorial, it sounds like there was a lot of work involved in it. I wouldn't have a clue how to do things like this without this kind of help.
Cheers for the advice.

Yes Caz you can post your xcf using the attachment box below.

First let me say excellent work on this K1TesseraEna. The animation is spectacular!

I presented a simple animation a few years ago using the Displacement Filter over at gimptalk, but creating displacement maps and achieving this kind of realistic 3D movement is astounding work. I tip my hat to you.

While I haven't read the entire tutorial, I have read in depth about creating the rocking motion of the larger boat and then looked at the logistics of the rest of the tutorial and it all appears very well presented.

Well done!

Sorry, I can't post the XCF as it's way too big - 37MGBs. To be honest I did this tutorial twice, once with the displacement map the way show, which wasn't very successful, and once as an experiment. The experiment involved using alpha to selection on the boat cut out layer and then using a white to grey blend for the map. I'm pretty sure that's the one I posted here, which might be the reason for the bad animation.
Ho hum, there's nothing like a bit of experimentation even if it does go wrong.